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There is still snow in Baze’s beard when they stand in front of the Rebel leaders. They have told them their names, but he has not taken the time to remember them. Even though they have taken them in, made sure that they were all healed--he and Chirrut, Bodhi, Cassian, Jyn--and back on their feet, this does not make him forget the fact that these very people said no to Jyn in the first place. These people are the reason for the beach and the explosions, the new twinges in his bones, the angry scars on Chirrut’s flesh that make Baze grind his teeth whenever he catches a glimpse of them. Yes, they came around, but not in a timely enough manner for Baze to regard them with anything other than quiet distrust. They should count themselves lucky that it is quiet instead of loud and forceful distrust, but Baze can be a respectful man and they did save Chirrut’s life.
He crosses his arms over his chest, which feels bare without his armor, and lets Chirrut take the lead in this interaction. Bodhi wanted to duck out the moment after he delivered them to the office, but Chirrut gripped his wrist gently, bade him stay without a spoken word. Now Bodhi flickers around the edge of the group, shifting his weight nervously and not really looking at anyone for longer than a few seconds. Baze hopes the Rebels have been kind to him. Bodhi is the greatest hero of all of them, and the least likely to demand anything including the respect and kindness that he deserves.
If Baze was nicer, if he was gentler and kind as the sunlight on Jedha used to be, he would reach out and touch Bodhi, ground him, try and calm him. No, Baze is not that man anymore, but. His arm extends, his fingers find an arm recently burned, healed but still hurting, and so his touch is tender when he stills the younger man. This is the him he is trying to get back to, after all. This is what Baze Malbus most devoted Guardian of the Whills would have done, the Baze Malbus who collected the young initiates into his arms when they woke from nightmares, crying, and sang to them softly until they could sleep again. He was always the quiet one, but he was not always the angry one. Anger came in waves, steady roaring tides, each one harkened by an event, by something being taken away or burned before his eyes. The loss of the kyber, the initiates, the temple. Jedha itself. The biggest pieces of his life all gone along with his hope, his faith.
Until hope burned bright like a kyber crystal in front of them. Not just hope. The chance to be hope. That changes a man. So does being pulled from the brink of certain death and given a chance to live again.
So Chirrut is breathing, he is breathing, Bodhi lives. And Cassian and Jyn. There is time left in the universe to feel the path of the Force again. There is time left to get back to being the man that children did not hide from because, despite his gruff appearance and rumbling voice, they knew that he was there only for their protection, that he could never hurt them and would move the world itself if it meant keeping them safe.
Baze has failed so many times over in his lifetime that he has stopped keeping score. He has been given the chance to try again, and he is not going to underscore it by refusing to move, especially when the effort is so small and can mean so much. So he stills Bodhi, reassures him with nothing more than that touch, which comes as a surprise to both of them, but he can feel Chirrut smile at him across the space even though he can only see the barest hint of Chirrut’s profile from where he is standing. Of course Chirrut knows. Chirrut always knows. Another lifelong lesson that he makes pretend long suffering sighs at but that never ceases to flood warmth through his veins.
The Rebels talking, they have been talking, but Baze has not been paying attention. He doesn’t shift his focus inward to them until Chirrut inclines his head just so. They are too old, they have been through too much, for him to be able to ignore that gesture because, to call upon a habit of Cassian’s droid, statistically speaking that gesture results in a fight about eighty percent of the time. And Baze is here with no repeater canon, no lightbow, no staff, nothing except his complaining, achy body, his fists, and years of teaching drilling down in his skull that he is not sure he can call upon anymore. Especially since their might be opponents have blasters. Even Chirrut, who never fell out of practice with their lessons, will have trouble here if it comes to that.
Baze shifts, expertly, expectedly, to put himself more securely between the Rebels and Bodhi. Yes, Bodhi is a grown man. Yes, Bodhi is probably capable of throwing a punch or, at the very least, getting himself out of harm’s way. Yet it is impossible for Baze to actively see that. He looks at Bodhi, and he sees NiJedha. He sees the streets teaming with children, their eyes big and dark and not understanding what is happening as the Empire pushes flush around them. Their city is gone, burned and crumbled, destroyed finally after years of imprisonment and torture, but he can still look after what came from it. Bodhi, Chirrut, and himself. Of the three of them, Bodhi is the one most in need of defending, and Bodhi is the one who has the most to lose. He and Chirrut have had a lifetime. A lifetime entrenched in suffering and war and loss, yes, but still. They have had their years. Bodhi is just waking up to himself, and Baze is not going to let him lose that here, not after they have all been snatched by the collar and pulled from the maw of death itself.
The words he focuses in on, his senses keen as the edge of a knife now, are not what he was expecting. They are not a threat, not a warning, not some sort of posturing meant to make them fall in line and pick a side. No, the Rebels are asking, politely, and that itself is strange to him. “We would like for you and,” the leader doesn’t seem to know how to properly address Chirrut and him, whether to form them together as a unit or break them into parts, how to break them into parts even. Many of the Rebels have no comprehension of the Guardians of the Whills he has learned during their time here, they look at him and Chirrut in awe as though they are something otherworldly. Some of that might have to do with them being part of the Rogue One escapade, but Baze does not think that is all there is to it.
The Rebel leader has caught Baze staring at him and stops, takes a breath, focuses his attention back on Chirrut, which may or may not be more settling depending on what mood Chirrut is in and whether he wants to fuck with them, and starts over. “We want to ask you both if you would be willing to train some of our troops.”
Baze laughs. It is a harsh sound, whip warm and rumbling, unexpected enough to make Bodhi jump slightly before he realizes that it is just Baze. And Baze, long self expelled from the Force and only now beginning to allow himself to pick its threads back up, feels Chirrut’s mirth flood through him like stepping into warm water. That. That is everything he ever wanted. And he is a fool for having blocked himself to it for so long. The Rebels look at him like he has lost his mind, like they are concerned they might have to shoot him or restrain him or something. They are made up of so many people, so many races and backgrounds, but they do not pay attention to any of them, do not take the time to learn each other, not really. They have always been concerned with their war, not realizing that true companionship makes every effort greater, that if they do not take the time to understand the concept of unity, they will fall apart again even if they win.
“What use would that be?” he asks. “Your war in is in the stars. We cannot teach them to pilot.” Neither of them has ever flown a ship. One of his fellow mercenaries offered to teach him, once, years ago when Baze was a volcano of anger and the desperate need to find something to destroy, but he had declined. He was in no mood to learn something new. Learning something new meant opening yourself to new possibilities, new experiences, new people. Baze had wanted none of that. He had slammed each and every door in himself and boarded them up. The only key in the galaxy had been in Chirrut’s hand, and he had stomped away from that for too long before returning, breath caught in his throat, as the other man unlocked them, patiently, to let light back in, but his heart, long starved for everything, never seemed to heal, not really, no matter how much Chirrut tried.
No, it never even got close. Not until he chased hope down, following that stripe of red silk he tied to Chirrut like a banner. Not until Chirrut slipped from him on the sands of a beach. Not until he hung suspended in bacta with Chirrut’s words in his ears and the Force almost palpable around him. Not until he woke to find that, somehow, they were still together despite everything.
He inclines his head toward the Rebels’ belts where blasters lie. Behind him Bodhi jerks, makes little noises like pacing, and Baze just reaches a hand back, out, for the other man to settle his fingers on. “Who would we train?” He considers Cassian for an instant, the type of unit that Cassian hails from, their purpose a much darker stain than the Rebels would like to see break the surface of their sea of resistance. They are supposed to be the better choice, after all, the good guys. But they are fools if they think they can only portray war as black and white. It is never that straight-forward. Even Cassian and his ilk use blasters, though. At least as far as he is aware. And it’s not like any Stromtrooper he and Chirrut ever encountered put their gun aside to fight on their terms, using their methods. What good would their teachings even be?
“This doesn’t make sense,” he huffs. This is probably the most any of the Rebels have heard him speak, and they still do not seem to know what to make of it. Baze is careful with his body language, purposeful, strong but not demanding. They are not going to walk over them with their words and their suggestions. “You don’t know what do with us, do you? You can’t send us home.” He tries not to make the word bitter, fails. “Your enemy is building ships capable of blasting planets out of the existence.” They know about Alderaan, how it was decimated while they floated, serene and healing, in bacta. Its absence, that yawning hole in the Force, still comes after Chirrut in the night, wakes him keening for Baze to repair. And he always will. That is his promise, that is his love made manifest, especially now that it has been given back to him when he thought all was lost.
Baze also knows that the Deathstar in question was destroyed thanks to the plans they were willing to die to secure and because of that bright little tremor in the Force that Chirrut wants to chase down. He knows that the immediate threat has passed, but where men have succeeded once who is to say they will not try again? He thinks that, if he were like the Empire and had the ability to make such a ship, that he would not have only one. The opportunity to wield so much power, to strike so much fear into the galaxy itself, enough fear to potentially halt any attempts at resistance? He cannot imagine how the Empire will not take that chance.
“You want me to teach you to wield sticks against that?” This time his laugh has no mirth; it speaks of foolish children who do not mind, who fall down and will not get up and try again. “I think you should reconsider this idea.” It is not because he does not want to teach, but Baze does not want to teach foolishly, which is what this seems to be. Yes, he wants to restart the temple as he told Chirrut moments ago when they were almost children again in the snow. That is not this, though. This is people wanting to use them in a way they think is respectful but just feels like a waste of everyone’s time.
The Rebel leader opens his mouth, closes it, runs a hand over his face. These people, Baze thinks, are so disconnected. They do not pose a solid front. They are disjointed and everyone wants to win in their own way. Scariff helped, the destruction of the Death Star helped, but in the face of the Empire, which is trained and resilient and steady, it still feels very haphazard and wavering. A candle flame in the wind.
That had been one of their tasks, he remembers, when they were initiates. To take a lit candle out into the sands of Jedha and find a way to keep the flame burning in the face of the endless wind. It was meant to teach them a lot of things. The taste of failure and how to come to terms with it. To keep trying even when it looks like you are set against insurmountable odds. Baze remembers feeling small and hopeless, useless, when his flame guttered out before he had even gotten settled. When Chirrut joined him--the initiates’ departure times had been staggered or they would have gone together as in all things--his flame was still bright, and he told Baze that it was okay, he could help guard his candle.
Chirrut was the only one to return with a still flickering flame. That memory says as much about them as anything could.
Baze is quiet, waiting to see what the leader will do now, but the man seems to be lost, adrift. This is not something he prepared himself for, which is odd in and of itself given how much the Rebels seems to disagree about the proper methods for doing things. He should be used to shouting down one idea and being faced with another or just open resistance. Perhaps he thought old men from a destroyed city would be easier to manipulate. Maybe he did not want this job in the first place. This might be a punishment for him for all Baze knows. He says nothing, he gives no ground.
Chirrut gives, but it is not the ground the man is probably hoping for. “I think what Master Malbus,” that draws another bark of laughter out of Baze, another flurry of steps from Bodhi even though his fingers are still lightly on Baze’s like a touchstone, but Chirrut continues as though he had not been interrupted at all, “is trying to say is that we would need some more information about plans in order to make a decision one way or the other.”
The leader makes a noise like he wishes they were all dead, and it is obvious in that moment that no real plan has been laid out. This was something someone told him to present before them to see how they would react without having given him a framework for it. More than likely it is simply something to keep them busy, to keep them occupied under the Rebel mark so they can say, “Here are the heroes. They are alive and well and still working with us. Their city was razed, but not their spirits.” Baze understands the point of idols even if he does not agree with them. He is no idol, and Chirrut will not accept that status either. “I will,” the man runs the hand over his face again, trying to push his features into the right assortment to convey whatever it is he needs to. “I will see if we can make accommodations for that and get back with you, Masters.”
Chirrut nods, once, and Baze is sure without even seeing his face that he is brandishing the smile. The one with teeth and gums, the laughing one that will set people at ease even when Chirrut is viciously plotting something, when he has won but wants them to feel as though they have not lost. Baze simply hums to himself and slowly, so as not to startle him, pulls his hand back from Bodhi because they are leaving in a moment. “We look forward to it,” Chirrut says, and turns, gesturing for Baze to take his arm.
It’s not something that he needs. This, like so much else, is a carefully constructed motion. This one is to cement home to the Rebel leader that they are not two people who can be pitted against the other. They are a unit, and they have had each other’s backs longer than this Rebellion has been together. They live and die and fight together. “Thank you for your time,” Chirrut says as they leave the room as though he were the one to initiate the meeting, which makes Baze smile and duck his head, hiding the brightness of his grin so as not to make the leader feel smaller than he probably already does. Pouring salt in someone else’s wound can feel good, but it is not noble. He is not noble again yet, but he is clawing his way back there, hand over hand, scrambling for purchase.
Baze’s fingers on Chirrut’s arm are already tapping, imparting words without even needing to say anything. It’s a form of communication that they devised when they were younger, when Chirrut’s sight bled away, the first of many losses in their shared world. As such, it takes him longer than it should to notice the fact that Bodhi is still following them, looking lonely and adrift, unsure what to do. Baze presses one final word into Chirrut’s fabric covered flesh and then steps aside so that Chirrut can more easily turn his attention to the younger man. There are things they need to talk about, many things now that he has voiced his idea about the temple and whatever it is these Rebels actually want, but those can wait until they are in their quarters. When they are out among the rest of the world, it seems wrong to try and monopolize all of Chirrut’s time no matter how much he wants to. They did not die on that beach when he felt it happen, and Baze would gladly do nothing but wrap his arms around Chirrut all day if that were an option.
“What will you do?” Bodhi asks in Jedhan, and Baze smiles not only because he was not expecting the younger man to speak first but also because of the little bit of home that the words bring back.
Chirrut uses a combination of the echobox and just his own keen senses to maneuver closer to where the pilot is lingering. Baze folds his arms across his chest and falls behind them, never too far, though, for several reasons. For one, these are the people who matter, the ones he can protect. Jyn and Cassian are somewhere, hard to locate, harder to love. They are both so hampered by their own cages, and they both so need to be busy. He remembers Chirrut’s words to the captain in that cell of Saw’s, about how cages can be carried, and thinks that the man has not laid his down yet, perhaps he never will.
Baze has been working on dismantling his for years, and Chirrut has been integral to the process. Perhaps one day Cassian will allow someone to help him leave behind all his shackles in the dust and the dirt. If Cassian can survive the war. If Jyn can survive the war. Jyn worries him the most out of their group. She has the least sense of self-preservation he has ever seen. Chirrut is a reckless handful, but he is terribly, dreadfully skilled, drenched heavy in the Force for what that is worth--more these days than it used to be--and he has Baze. Jyn has. A kyber crystal around her neck, and a heart that burns as bright, eyes that can be dull, a sense of distrust, the penchant for jumping into danger without giving a shit. That is all terrifying. And even though she and Cassian obviously shared something, they have been avoiding each other and the rest of them since they all woke on Hoth. Baze does not know why, and he is not inclined to meddle. Chirrut is the meddler. Always has been, always will be. Baze is too old for that, especially now.
“What the Force wills,” Chirrut says, and Baze watches as Bodhi’s expression seems to falter just a touch.
He wants to reach over and clap the young man on the shoulder, tell him that he knows it’s a hard line to buy, that it can be a harder way to live, feeling swept along by tides you cannot even completely fathom, but that the Force can also bring good things. It has taken him too many years to get back to the point where he can admit that, believe that. Perhaps later he will tell Bodhi that. For now he is just enjoying being on the outside of their orbit, listening to the familiar words, feel the weight of them lap across him, a heavier, better sound than Basic. It brings back memories of the temple, of the marketplace, of NiJedha. The holy city now toppled and gone. If they start a new temple, it will not be there. It will not even be on a similar world. No, Baze wants something new. Not like Jedha, or Yavin IV, which was unbearably muggy, or even like Hoth. Though he wouldn’t mind being somewhere with snow because the image of Chirrut surrounded by ice crystals is too gorgeous to only have just this once.
“Bodhi, are you happy with the Rebellion?” Chirrut asks, and Baze can tell that it catches the other man off guard, though it is not hard to startle the pilot. He seems to live in a constant state of anxiety, and Baze is unsure whether that is because of what happened at the hands of Saw and his rebels or if it is simply how Bodhi has always been. It is possible that he will never know the difference. The sadder thing is that he is unsure how much Bodhi knows about the difference anymore. Bodhi retains his Jedhan, which is something, the sign that his mind has not all slid completely out of place no matter how many mornings they find him in a corner somewhere telling one droid after another that he is the pilot.
Bodhi rubs a hand on the back of his neck and does not look at either of them, his eyes instead flickering from the ground to the walls, as if he is concerned about being trapped. Chirrut’s hand comes up to rest on the pilot’s arm, a gesture meant to reassure that obviously works because the younger man looks more at ease. “Yes. I mean. I don’t think they hate me.” There is something else in his words, and Baze does not need him to expand.
They do not hate them, any of them, but it is what he said in the office to the leader, they do not know what to do with them. Bodhi defected from the Empire, which is not completely unheard of and Baze knows that there are others here who did the same thing, but Bodhi’s way of doing so, where it led him became so galvanizing. It is different. The other pilots give him a wide berth, their eyes say more than their mouths. They do not know why the Rogue One pilot sometimes talks to himself and wrings his hands and paces, though there are a few others in the complex who seem to have similar symptoms. They call it war shock when they talk about it at all, which is not often. None of them seem to get lost as easily as Bodhi. Or maybe they just don’t like the fact that he will not or cannot hide his affliction the way they do. Like everything he does, Bodhi carries it in front of him for all to see and just seems to hope and pray that he will be good enough for it to be overlooked, that people will be kind about the wounds that never stop bleeding.
They are homeless now, and Baze had run from Jedha before, spent years outside of its orbit, away from the streets that he could have sketched from memory, the smells that would still wake him up, phantoms of the marketplace, and Chirrut’s laughter, bubbling. He had been away, but it had still been there, a beacon, a reminder. Even when it was faded and taken and made worse than anything he could have imagined, the holy city had endured. It endures no more. They are adrift with only each other.
He knows Chirrut is lost. Chirrut, who thought that he had blazed a trail, found a purpose, guided a star home, protected the universe, is lost now. He mentions the Force sparingly as though he remembers, off hand and at strange moments, that it is still out there, and he meditates less than Baze is accustomed to. They are all feeling the pains of being alive. The Rebels do not know what to do with them, but they do not know what to do with themselves, either. That realization is perhaps the most startling one of them all.
Baze wants to take both these men back out into the snow. He does not want to dwell on all the heavy questions of what they will do next. All he wants to do is let the responsibilities of life slip away. It is not that easy. It never has been. Somewhere in this base, the Rebel leaders are plotting the next move, and somewhere that tiny little Force star is growing brighter and brighter. He is not going to be able to keep Chirrut away from it forever, but he is apprehensive about what the meeting will entail. They never met an actual Jedi on Jedha, though they had glimpsed a few when they were children playing on the steps of the temple. They had all seemed to be severe men, stooped with the weight of the Force, their need to control it and wield it rather than just letting it be, letting it work through them.
Bodhi is combing his fingers through his hair, which is down. It is long, and it curls, though it looks softer and finer than his ever was. “What do you think will happen?” Bodhi asks, fear coloring every word. The skin of his arms, his hands, is still angry and pink, healed but it is always going to show the traces of what happened. No amount of bacta will leech the physical reminder of that death from the man’s body.
Chirrut hums, and tilts his head in Baze’s direction. Baze raises an eyebrow that he knows Chirrut cannot see, but he is pretty sure his husband can feel. If he does not pick up on it that way, his incredulity is probably a pulse in the Force between them, grown much stronger since he stopped all of his fighting against it. Chirrut was always the stronger in the Force, but Baze had felt the sting of the deaths of the Jedi as well, though it had not been enough to cripple him the way it did Chirrut. He felt the dying echo of the holy city. He has pressed against the absence of Alderaan the way he might use his tongue to probe the hole left by an extracted tooth. So he knows that there are flickers, a line between them, maybe even a knot of twisted threads. He knows this in much the same way that he knows he heard Chirrut speaking of love to him while the floated, suspended, healing, and how he knows that the other is drifting a little. They are tied, they are bound, but it is not the type of knot that restrains.
“I don’t know, little brother,” he says once he is well and truly sure that Chirrut is not going to answer, not going to cut him off. His husband is being oddly quiet, and Baze has not figured out all the nuances of it yet. Perhaps it is simply because Chirrut has always believed that Baze is better with injured people and is giving him the chance to rise up and be that man again. The one who will comfort and coddle, press hurts away with words and physical contact. Chirrut is more prone to easy laughter, jokes, tongue in cheek chiding. He can comfort because he has learned how to do so, but it is Baze’s instinct to shelter. Or, maybe, Chirrut is tired, and it is easier to let Baze lead for once.
“Do you think we’ll win?” Bodhi won’t look at either of them, and his fingers remain in his hair, fidgeting, something on him is always moving.
There is another level to that question that sits there under the actual spoken words, but Baze knows it without it being given breath. Was it worth it? Did they make any difference any all? Did the deaths of those who could not be saved, the ones who believed in the suicide mission they chased, did they matter? Did they die for a good reason? Had they died would it have been a good reason? Did they do everything they could do? Was it enough? Some of these questions are easier than others, but his shoulders still ache with the thought of facing them all down. He wishes that Bodhi were younger. He wishes that they were in the temple, and he was a Guardian and Bodhi were an initiate. He wishes this were all a bad dream that he could soothe away. None of that is real. That is another life that will not happen because it is gone. All of it is gone. This is what is real, this is what is left. This and the time to figure out what will happen.
Baze looks at Chirrut, who is still just standing, his weight shifting a little and if Baze didn’t know better he would say that his husband is meditating but he can never do that silently. No, Chirrut is waiting. They are both waiting. To hear what he will say. Baze Malbus the fallen. Baze Malbus the rising again like the fiery bird out of the myth that he found buried in an ancient tome in the temple library. No one has wanted him for wisdom in so long. He has just been a gun. He has just been a failure, a wisp of a man, a mockery of the life he loved. “I,” he starts, stops, licks his lips and clears his throat. His hands press against his chest, but there is no armor left. It has all gone down. “I don’t know, Bodhi. I hope so. I think so. There is a light in the Force, and it is strong; it is good.”
He reaches a hand out to find Bodhi’s hand, which makes the pilot start a little, though he does not pull away. “You did a good thing. It mattered. It mattered quite a lot. You can keep doing the good things here or you can find another way. If you want. If you need to.” The breath catches in his throat, and his eyes feel hot, tight, but he persists. “You do not have to be made of war, for war only. Do you remember NiJedha before war?” It is not the first time he has wondered about that, whether Bodhi knew their city when it was whole. There were always conflicts, there always are in those kinds of circumstances, but there used to exist a feeling of it being alright, of it being safe.
The rise and fall of his shoulders is so quick that Baze isn’t sure whether it is a shrug or just another little tic. “Not really,” he breathes out, the words so low that they hurt Baze to hear.
Ever since he came out of the bacta with Chirrut’s voice in his head, and the Force a palpable rope around his ankle again, Baze has felt burned by emotion, more so than he has felt in years. He had forgotten what it was to be this raw. As though feeling him floundering, Chirrut has joined him, a heavy, comforting weight on his side, anchoring him. “We can tell you,” Chirrut says. “About NiJedha, the temple, the kyber, the Guardians.” He smiles, not the mocking smile, but the true smile, the one that Baze falls in love with continuously. “Bodhi Rook, how much do you know about the Force?”
It begins, then, with Bodhi.